Ibāḍī Law and Jurisprudence

The research aims at deconstructing the standard account of origins of Ibāḍī law and the evolution of the movement into a madhhab, proving that the study of Ibāḍī sources throws considerable light not only on the development of Ibāḍī law and jurisprudence, but also on the emergence of Islamic kalām and fiqh. The Ibāḍis derived their legal system from the same sources as other schools and used almost the same methods of juristic speculation, nevertheless several differences appear between their legal system and those of other Islamic schools. These differences occur in cases where Ibāḍis possess traditions narrated by their authorities which the other schools do not approve of and vice versa. They also result from the different interpretation of the two principle sources, Qur‘an and Sunna. In my research a number of outstanding features of Ibāḍī law will be analysed in order to illustrate the nature and the extent of the divergence.